


Caught Between Duty And A Scream

by alyyks



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Kanan (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Nothing is Happy and Everything Hurts, Order 66 Aftermath (Star Wars), POV CC-10/994 | Grey, Star Wars Rare Pairs Exchange 2020, during Star Wars: Kanan The Last Padawan 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27778924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks
Summary: I can’t believe this nightmare just won’t go awayThere’s no way, there’s no way I’ll let you down—Grey couldn't recognize his own thoughts, or his brothers, or rememberDepathe traitor.
Relationships: Depa Billaba/CC-10/994 | Grey
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	Caught Between Duty And A Scream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countessofbiscuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/gifts).



> Summary from Phantogram's Let Me Down - a very good song that gave me many Order 66 feels.
> 
> I'll like to remind everyone that the request said "BREAK ME"... and I ran with it.
> 
> Thanks a million time to my beta antonomasia09 for the encouragements and the confirmation that yes, it hurts.

“CALEB, NO!”

It was _fear_ terror _anger_ that punched through him like a grenade exploding next to him. In the ringing silence of blown eardrums and the rushing air of sudden decompression, he could think—for the first time in months, he was himself.

The mag lock of the airlock was slammed shut, and the air returned to the cargo hold. Grey slammed to the floor and breathed, before rushing to the airlock. He couldn’t see far, couldn’t see Caleb _thekid_ traitor’s body floating.

Grey breathed and he was Grey, not just CC-10/994, not just Commander Grey. He was himself and the kid he had sworn to take care of had just spaced himself to escape him. That kid was the same kid they had hunted down for months, the same kid Styles had presented to Grey as if his brother was nothing but a lothcat preening with a prey, ready to play and kill.

Everything was wrong.

Caleb was—the traitor was— no. No, Style was not a killer, there was no understandable, reasonable reason for him to have brought the kid like that, expecting praise from Grey.

There was another ship right next to theirs now, and Grey could see, maybe, something that could be Caleb- the trait- what was wrong with his head?! It felt like he couldn’t keep a thought straight, couldn’t focus. Maybe he had hit the floor harder than it had looked at first. Maybe the small figure the ship had grabbed was the kid. Maybe… but no, the kid couldn’t have survived. Jedi were made of tough stuff but not so tough that…

Grey breathed, and his hands turned black and red and charred like flesh hit by blaster bolt, like the trait- Gen- Mast- like her back, as she shouted for Caleb to run, to go, to live.

_I killed General Billaba._

Everything was wrong. He could still feel the weight of his blaster rifle as he shot her. And shot her again and again once she was on the ground, making sure she would not get up again. Everything was incredibly wrong, because he could recall that just a few hours before, he had defended her against the Kallerans’ insults after they had liberated their planet from the Separatists, a few hours before that, before the final push of their campaign, she had stolen a kiss “for luck,” her eyes shining.

_I killed Master Depa Billaba._

Grey heard Styles’ retreating steps to the cockpit, heard his own too loud breaths.

_I killed Depa._

_Force, I killed Depa._

_—_

_Depa’s fingers are cool and smooth against Grey’s face—and he catches them before they can reach his scar. He takes both hands in his and kisses the palms, one after the other. If he could hide in her hands, he would._

_“Grey,” she breathes, and he has to open his eyes and look up. She is in front of him, fully dressed the same way he is fully dressed, only his helmet tucked away behind him on the hard bunk in his quarters. Depa, Master Depa Billaba of the Jedi Council, General Billaba is there, sitting in front of him, and not covered in blood after facing Grievous and covering the retreat of her troops as much as she could, not suspended in bacta in a coma no-one believed she’d wake up from. She is here, alive, their General once more, and Grey was certain he had seen her—_ her _, not only her body floating in blue gunk—for the last time with one good eye on a derelict lartie, bleeding out in his arms and her hand against his own bleeding face._

_Her thumb returns to the bottom of his scar. It starts high into his hairline, crosses his left eye, ends below the cheekbone. He had almost lost the eye. Wolffe had been there, when Grey and his remaining brothers had touched down on Coruscant, uncertain of what would happen next. His older brother had made grumpy jokes about Grey not stealing his look, but he had been there, a solid shoulder to lean on._

_It is hard to forget that the Wolfpack had been decimated down to three men at the start of the war. And now it is Grey’s turn to be the commander facing that loss._

_So Grey looks up at Depa, at that second chance to see her, to be with her, to follow her on the battlefield, and Depa doesn’t say anything._

_She kisses him, and he kisses her back, and they do not stay fully dressed for long after that._

_—_

“We failed her once. We will _never_ fail her again.”

_Grey can’t get his own words out of his head. Seeing Depa facing Grievous a second time, seeing her submerged in bacta again, seeing Caleb running to her aid to face Grey’s nightmare—and Stance dying to protect the kid… It’s hard to get his own head straight, to stop seeing the waves of droids mowing them down. The Third Battle of Mygeeto might be over, but the war continues._

_He takes a deep breath in, holds it, releases slowly._

_Styles had taken one look at him once they were all aboard their cruiser above the planet, had shaken his head and had gone to check their troops. All he had said to Grey was “get yourself straightened out, brother.” Caleb had followed him, eager to learn more about the battalion and the men who kept calling him kid._

_So here was Grey, in Depa’s quarters, wearing only his blacks, trying to finish the resupply inventory and release the residual adrenaline of the fight while waiting for Depa to be released from the medbay._

_The letters dance on the screen. Letters and numbers and the names of brothers gone too soon, and it is all too easy to hate the droids and their generals, to curse their existence. All too easy and ultimately useless. His anger is better used getting sharper, getting better, so that there are fewer brothers killed. So that he can be the battalion’s anchor._

_He only raises his head at Depa’s entrance. She is already dressed, hood pulled over her head, shadowing her eyes._

_“Grey,” she greets._

_He nods. He puts his datapad aside, watches her take her robe off—then her outer tunic, the wraps around her arms, her belt, her boots. When she is wearing nothing but her breast band and her shorts, she walks to him sitting on the bunk, then slides behind him, her back to the wall and her face to the small of his back. Her right hand lies on his thigh and it seems very pale, for all their skins are the same color._

_“Depa?”_

_“I need a moment, now that it is done. I know— I am afraid of letting my fears of failing you, failing our men, and failing the Republic drive me. It is easier to let go of those fears when you are here.”_

_Grey turns his head. He can only see dark hair slightly lighter than his own. Her hand, on his thigh, presses a little harder._

_He hears her breathe, and he matches her rhythm. She had tried to teach him and Styles and a few others how to meditate, the first time. The snipers had taken to it like aiwhas to the ocean. None of them are left._

_“What do you think of Caleb?” he hears her say, after several minutes._

_Grey chuckles. “He’s got spunk. I never thought about having kids, but the idea is growing on me.”_

_“You like teasing him far too much,” she says, and she moves, wraps herself around him. He can see her face now, her eyes._

_“You scared me,” he says, and she closes her eyes in acknowledgement. She will scare him, and continue doing so. He probably scares her, too. And he will continue doing so as well, because his life is no more important than any other and neither is hers: duty first._

_“May I ask something of you?” She sits up to ask him that—not general to commander, but equal to equal, lover to lover. Grey catches himself wondering, with a tiny part of himself, what would be next, what would happen after the war, would he stay with her, would she stay with him._

_“Yes.”_

_“If something happens to me, take care of Caleb.” She takes his hand in hers. “Don’t let him do something foolish—“_

_“—like running to the aid of his master?”_

_She smiles. “Exactly.”_

_Grey lifts her hand to his face, presses his mouth to the back of her fingers. “I’ll do my best.”_

—

“Billaba was our hero,” Grey said, and with those words he could still the smell of the campfire they had sat around in the minutes before Order 66, could still smell the ripe meiloorum Big-Mouth had shared, could hear the sounds of their camp under the stars and Depa’s laughter.

Styles turned to him with hate in his eyes and it seemed his brother was a whole other person, not hearing Grey’s words—or if he heard them, not understanding them. This was not his brother. This was not his brother in the cockpit, yelling at the pilots to shoot down the two ships flying around them and trying to escape, the two ships that had rescued Caleb. This was not his brother, taking orders without questions and refusing to even think about questions, calling Jedi _traitor_ when he had once called Depa _General_ and _Teacher_ and _Friend_.

Grey took a step back when Styles went back to give his full attention to the pilots and the ships beyond the viewports.

There was no other option, was there?

 _I killed Depa._ His hands were black and red, from the memory of her blood, keeping life, taking life.

Grey opened the port side armory of the cockpit, unseen by all. The DC-15 was far too light for this, for his decision—it had been far too light to kill Depa. And yet.

And yet he had killed the woman he loved, had killed any possible futures, had gone after her student, the same student he had sworn to her he’d protect if anything happened to her. She hadn’t thought to protect Caleb from him, hadn’t thought to protect herself from him… but he could do one thing, one last thing, he could make things right and break his promise to her once more all at once.

_I won't kill Caleb._

Grey was himself, not a puppet, not an empty shell toting around the numbers CC-10/994. He fired into the console, destroying shields commands and the main controls as the two ships out the viewport whirled back on them, all guns blazing.

He didn’t have time to say anything to his brothers, to ask Depa, wherever in the Force she was, for forgiveness.

_May the Force be with you, kid._


End file.
